Windows Phone has lost 1 million users in the USA since the start of this year
113 replies, posted
I don't get why shit on WP so much - sure, it doesn't have much marker share (especially in the us), but for low-end devices it's pretty much a breeze compared to android. And then of course many devices are being upgraded to the newest release (and this is gonna get even better with WP10), which, considering the latest release of android is hovering around 10%, is pretty good.
If you don't like WP or you think the apps aren't there, get something else - the hardware is great, and while development has been slow the last year or so, WP10 is gonna be a big push.
I thought the Lumia series was considered the flagship, considering that Microsoft now owns Nokia and that the latest models are pretty high-end from what I've heard.
I bought a cheap $40 windows 8.1 a day or so ago (Lumina 635) because I need one until I get some extra dosh from my new job.
I tried to find a good windows phone that was something similar to modern smartphones, honestly there just isn't that many on sale. From what I hear the OS isn't bad at all, neither are the dev tools, it's just people aren't using it and frankly MS isn't trying all that hard (my perception on the latter)
Also not having a legitimate YouTube app is a kind of issue, and many apps are outdated and broken in the store because (somehow?) cross-version support is messed up. Uber stopped working, for example, it still isn't fixed. People have to use the mobile site.
It's a pretty big mess actually, I suppose. Hm.
I have a lumia 520 because it was the cheapest smartphone I could get. It's a great phone.
Sure, every app/game constantly crashes, phone gets stuck and restarts really often and can hardly watch an entire yt video without it crashing or freezing, but overall it's great yeah.
[QUOTE=Maloof?;47895595]The problem with all these OSes is that you reach a point where it's impossible to enter the game and succeed. Like Google Plus in social media. If the Windows phone OS was a reworked branch of android that ran android apps then it might have taken off, but expecting developers to develop two seperate apps for IOS and Android is pretty steep - throwing in a seperate run for a Windows OS is overkill.[/QUOTE]
Well, it will run Android apps in the near future, and iOS so..
[editline]7th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;47897335]If it was open source I'd think about it, but you are completely at the mercy of Microsoft for OS updates.[/QUOTE]
As you are with Apple and to a lesser extent Google, most Android phones can only receive unofficial updates if they can be rooted/bootloader unlocked. Windows Phone seems to use the same driver model as the desktop OS, so, if you could unlock the phone, then I think you could probably unofficially update the OS. People managed to install the insider preview on unsupported devices in the past by modifying the tool.
[editline]7th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=VinLAURiA;47897253]I thought the Lumia series was considered the flagship, considering that Microsoft now owns Nokia and that the latest models are pretty high-end from what I've heard.[/QUOTE]
They've been pushing out mid-low end devices, not phones to compete with the Galaxy S6, the G4 or the iPhone.
[QUOTE=KlaseR;47897325]I have a lumia 520 because it was the cheapest smartphone I could get. It's a great phone.
Sure, every app/game constantly crashes, phone gets stuck and restarts really often and can hardly watch an entire yt video without it crashing or freezing, but overall it's great yeah.[/QUOTE]
I have a Lumia 620 as a work-phone (provided by the company) and thus far it's the worst phone I've used. It has the exact same crashing-problems as yours, it freezes, loses signal completely, restarts by itself and randomly asks me to re-type the PIN (not related to the restart-problem, I'm just using it to type a text-message for example and it just slaps the PIN-screen in my face).
That and I just fucking hate the UI and the general way it works. I have bought my own, personal phone and use it and the piece of shit Lumia sits on my desk at work and gets used as little as possible.
[QUOTE=KlaseR;47897325]I have a lumia 520 because it was the cheapest smartphone I could get. It's a great phone.
Sure, every app/game constantly crashes, phone gets stuck and restarts really often and can hardly watch an entire yt video without it crashing or freezing, but overall it's great yeah.[/QUOTE]
Then you should just return it, though? My mother has a 520 and it doesn't do this, and either way you shouldn't tolerate a faulty product?
[QUOTE=gman003-main;47895223]I'll be honest, I didn't even think Windows Phone had a million users total.[/QUOTE]
i saw one dude using a windows smartphone in my advanced linux class a few years ago. that's about all i can remember
I had a windows 7 phone, nokia lumia 800. it made me sad because I loved the build quality and the design and responsiveness of the OS but there are no good goddamn apps at all, and that situation has only marginally improved for W8 phone.
Actually, it's worth noting that with Windows 10 comes tools to make it a hell of a lot easier to make android apps compatiable with WP devices. I mean, that's Microsoft did with King for WP's Candy Crush and no one noticed so there's no port performance impact.
I think that might help the app problem significantly.
MS should make desktop apps work on WP. That would set it miles ahead other phones.
[QUOTE=itisjuly;47897679]MS should make desktop apps work on WP. That would set it miles ahead other phones.[/QUOTE]
That's also happening to an extent in Windows 10. Universal apps are apps that are exactly the same on Windows Phone and Windows 10, so all of the office applications are the same (i.e same features and power.) Plus, you can plug in a keyboard, mouse and display into your phone and it will act as a desktop computer immediately.
Windows 10 really is a make-it-or-break-it time for Windows Phone. Either at this point it rises from the ashes or it plummets into oblivion like Blackberry; only time will tell what happens.
[QUOTE=Xmeagol;47895664]got a lumia 930 and it's the best phone i've had
fuck snapshit and instarreah[/QUOTE]
I own an iPhone and my Lumia 930 was the best phone I've ever had.
I broke it and someone gave me this for free... I'm gonna get my 930 fixed at some point I guess, I'm just struggling to justify spending a bomb to fix it when I've already got a pretty good phone.
[editline]7th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=itisjuly;47897679]MS should make desktop apps work on WP. That would set it miles ahead other phones.[/QUOTE]
No... No they shouldn't.
It's hard enough to use a desktop website on a tiny screen, imagine using some crazy complex desktop app
I understand the hate it gets, but it's not that horrible
For a person like me who doesn't do much with their phone, it's one heck of a phone. Good hardware, fast software, I really like it.
I think microsofts tactic right now is to get windows phone in developing markets, which aren't yet saturated with handsets like the US is. That way they can get some market share, encourage some developers to develop, and maybe then think about taking another crack at the US and Europe. That's why they're only really releasing dirt cheap phones, and aren't marketing them much out of developing nations. Cheap phones also help them attract first time smartphone buyers elsewhere. In the mean time, they're making it as easy as possible to port apps from iOS and Android, and leveraging Windows' desktop market share to expose more people to Universal apps, again encouraging more developers to develop for all of windows since it's a piece of piss to get a universal desktop app to run on a phone.
Time will tell if this actually works, but it's definitely thought out.
Besides Freda, Bookviser and Audiobooked.. There aren't a whole lot of good e reader and audiobook apps for WP. The same thing can be said for Android too.
My Nokia Lumia 1520 is basically a fucking piece of glass. I've broken the digitizer 3 fucking times now, and it's impossible to replace, unlike an iPhone or android. I've dropped my android phones plenty of times, NEVER broken.
Nokia glued the digitizer to the LCD; it's impossible to separate them. If you want to replace the digitizer, you have to buy an entire new screen assembly.
Also, there are no apps for it, and some companies outright REFUSE to develop for it (snapchat), and will ban you for using third party apps on it (snapchat). as a vanilla phone, it's actually pretty fine, and it had a big screen before the iPhone 6 plus. I liked that for watching netflix, but the my phone is in a perpetual state of being broken, so I resolved the last time I broke it that as soon as I get my next paycheck I'm buying a goddamned HTC One
[editline]7th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=CrumbleShake;47897690]I own an iPhone and my Lumia 930 was the best phone I've ever had.
I broke it and someone gave me this for free... I'm gonna get my 930 fixed at some point I guess, I'm just struggling to justify spending a bomb to fix it when I've already got a pretty good phone.
[editline]7th June 2015[/editline]
No... No they shouldn't.
It's hard enough to use a desktop website on a tiny screen, imagine using some crazy complex desktop app[/QUOTE]
idk if you use windows 8, but MS already has windows phone/tablet like UI for their desktop apps being sold on the windows marketplace; I guarantee you this is already Microsoft's intention (unifying the runtime environment on their three platforms. probably with .net)
[QUOTE=CrumbleShake;47897690]
No... No they shouldn't.
It's hard enough to use a desktop website on a tiny screen, imagine using some crazy complex desktop app[/QUOTE]
Yes yes they should. This will
1) add a lot more apps to windows phone
2) encourage developers to make touch and mobile friendly guis
3) boost power user base considerably
4) running windows apps on a portable phone device is awesome overall
[QUOTE=FlandersNed;47896577]That's partially Google's fault. Microsoft made a fully-fledged YouTube client, but Google issued a DMCA against it because they didn't like it and so it's just an HTML wrapper. The third-party apps like myTube, Tubecast and Metrotube are a lot better.
That's also the thing about windows phone; a lot of people don't realize how good the third party apps are.[/QUOTE]
The third party apps for major services are some of the best on any platform IMO
all of the 6-apps are excellent, metro/mytube easily the best youtube app I've used on any platform, Readit is the best and fullest-featured reddit app I've used on any platform, etc.
The shitty thing is that a good chunk of the time, the official apps have half as much work put into them as these third party apps. Or in the case of stuff like Snapchat, the 3rd party app is amazing (which makes up for the lack of snapchat support on WP), but then Snapchat pulls a complete bullshit DCMA against it preventing any snapchat clients to be on the platform. Despite Snapchat not bothering to make an app themselves.
The third party apps are what really sell the platform for me, which sucks when 3rd party apps have to deal with DCMA's or occasionally lacking specific features you can't get through API's. And what really sucks is the first party apps are majority an afterthought - the developers for them are lazy and only do the bare minimum to get the app to work on the platform half the time. The other half they put the legwork into making a good app but never update it.
[editline]7th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Levelog;47896592]My biggest issue with my 928 is I just found all the browsers to be inferior. I think I tried 4 of the top ones, and none quite clicked.[/QUOTE]
There are no 3rd party browsers for WP because it only supports IE - therefore all 3rd party browsers you find in the store are just UI wrappers for IE.
Personally doesn't bother me because IE works fine for what I want to do when I web browse on my phone.
[QUOTE=Sam Za Nemesis;47897921]I don't really care if WP was free software or MPL'd, They enforce terrible draconian security features to ensure zero consumer tampering of the hardware[/QUOTE]
Id rather have a Phone that works then one that doesn't.
I know it's not the same, but after I got my Surface, I checked the app store to see if I could use it like a tablet. But all the apps I found had terrible reviews with <3.5 stars and accompanying text saying it was broken or to use the desktop/web version instead. For reference, Android apps always have >4.5 stars. In the end, I use my Surface more as a laptop than tablet because the apps are very poor and far and few.
I tried out a Windows Phone once. Was the Lumia 635.
While the UI looks nice, it's extremely cluttered, and scrolling down to find what you want is just annoying.
The OS also doesn't leave much for power users, with iOS even having a bit more control over functionality.
And of course, I'm sure I don't need to bring up the fact that it has barely any apps to its name. Hell, it doesn't even have a decent audio player to play FLAC/OGG with. And the only potentially half decent apps that are on there are behind some pretty expensive pay walls.
I really don't see Windows 10 for Phones doing any better, because it just looks like Windows Phone 8.1. If it's basically desktop Windows with a phone tailored UI skin slapped on it though, that could be nice. As it stands now, it just looks like more of what came before it.
I will say that the Lumia 635 felt very nice in the hand though. Solid piece of hardware for such a cheap device. Real shame it had to be strapped with such a gimped OS...
i have a Lumia 830 and it's a technically good phone, although the app situation aint good
Doesnt windows 10 phone support porting over apps from other platforms, which would give it a big push in app count?
Windows Phones, tech wise, are great pieces of hardware. They have a totally different style of homepage UI than the traditional grid, separated into pages that you scroll horizontally across, into a less restricted tile system, that's one, single vertical stretch. If you have a [I]lot[/I] of apps, this can be bothersome, but I can't imagine having so many that even folders clusters it all.
Microsoft made things very awkward for them. My opinion on why they lost so many users this year? No new flagship. They had a budget phone here, midrange here, but nothing big, and that's because they're waiting for Windows 10 to come out. Which, by the way, the mobile version is having an extremely slow developmental process in comparison. Windows 10 for desktops and tablets is hitting July, while for mobile devices it's rumored to get here in October, and that's only a rumor. That means no new flagship for basically the rest of the year, which will only hurt them.
The app situation? That's on developers, which Microsoft can only do so much about. Some 3rd party apps have been made (and are still supported) that are really impressive, some arguably better than any official application. However, you can't sell a platform on third-party apps. Two cases however, that [I]actively[/I] is screwing over WP is Snapchat and YouTube.
For Snapchat, a third party app was made, 6snap, and lasted a while. Due to apparent security reasons, Snapchat decided to lock down on all third-party apps. 6snap's dev even contacted Snapchat and said "look, I'll give you the coding and all, you can make it official, you don't have to do anything, just approve and publish it." Snapchat just ignored him, and carried on.
Microsoft made their own YouTube app a while back. It allowed downloading videos and didn't show ads. However, Google didn't like that. Told them it violated their terms of service, and to either fix it, or take it down. Microsoft fixed it, and immediately after... Google changed YouTube's API so that the app broke.
It sucks, it really does, and you can tell even Microsoft is losing faith in the platform, and focusing on software on other OSes instead. Hell, can you imagine Apple making a Siri app for Android?
Kinda hard to go for a WP when you can just get an android or an iPhone, and have nothing to worry about after.
[QUOTE=itisjuly;47897862]Yes yes they should. This will
1) add a lot more apps to windows phone
2) encourage developers to make touch and mobile friendly guis
3) boost power user base considerably
4) running windows apps on a portable phone device is awesome overall[/QUOTE]
I take it you haven't used an 7-8 inch x86 Windows 8.1 tablet? They definitely run Windows applications, games even (my Dell Venue 8 Pro runs Skyrim surprisingly well).
However, even at the comparatively low resolution of 1280 x 800 I have to get the stylus out to use many desktop apps or control panels. Everything is just too small for your finger. Add on top of that, many windows applications don't support DPI scaling correctly, sometimes outright breaking the UI.
Now imagine that on a display that's half the size with twice the resolution. It would be a nightmare usability wise. Good luck convincing your average user to use a stylus.
[QUOTE=Skanic;47898068]Id rather have a Phone that works then one that doesn't.[/QUOTE]
Sounds like something a mac user would say. My PC is very moddable and not strict, still works. So is my android.
[QUOTE=Demache;47898920]I take it you haven't used an 7-8 inch x86 Windows 8.1 tablet? They definitely run Windows applications, games even (my Dell Venue 8 Pro runs Skyrim surprisingly well).
However, even at the comparatively low resolution of 1280 x 800 I have to get the stylus out to use many desktop apps or control panels. Everything is just too small for your finger. Add on top of that, many windows applications don't support DPI scaling correctly, sometimes outright breaking the UI.
Now imagine that on a display that's half the size with twice the resolution. It would be a nightmare usability wise. Good luck convincing your average user to use a stylus.[/QUOTE]
The idea is that if you can run windows apps on small screens, more devs will adapt their UI to work on those screens. Just because a phone can run windows apps does not mean all the phone apps have to go. If such a feature happens, it will at first be used only by power users. I know I'd buy a phone that can run windows apps over an android one personally. With time more and more apps will add a phone centric UI. But that means opening up the phone to unregulated 3rd party and that's something MS isn't too keen on.
[QUOTE=itisjuly;47899200]Sounds like something a mac user would say. My PC is very moddable and not strict, still works. So is my android.
[/QUOTE]
Don't try to argue anything WP related with Skanic. It's just a painful logic-void experience.
I would happily use a windows phone if it had the same amount of apps as my android. Sorry MS.
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